Forced Imagination.

I've packed away about 50% of my kid's toys and other 'non-necessities'. They've been pretty happy with the toys which are left and seem to just focus on what they have with more intensity. There have been the occasional requests for "You know, that round thing that the penguin sits on?" Or "Mom, where did my bed go?"

But for the most part we're happy with less stuff. Except today I could have used that box of halloween costumes that's packed away in one of 65 boxes in the storage unit on my driveway.

Today the school is having a character parade to celebrate the school accomplishing their reading goal for the month of March. Each child is to dress up like their favorite character from a book. It turns out the school hates me.

Yesterday Madison came home from school and announced she would like to dress up as the Ice Queen from Narnia. Which, according to Madison, is a costume I can easily whip up in an evening. When I said no, I don't think so, we spent the rest of the day running through all sorts of wonderful ideas. There was the Polar Bear from Albert The Bear, "You can just make me a big white fur suit!" Yes! In between making dinner, laundry and painting the basement wall I'll whip you up a white fur suit! There was the moose from If You Give A Moose A Muffin. "You can just make me antlers with paper mache!" I'll get right on it.

Madison was at least being reasonable about the lack of choices she would end up having. Max, in typical Max fashion, pursued his typical plan of action. Ask for something unreasonable and impossible, get an answer you don't like, stomp around for a little bit, come up with another something unreasonable and impossible, get an answer you don't like, stomp around for a little bit, come up with another......and so on.

There was Wilbur from Charlotte's Web, involving a molded rubber nose I could make "with [unspecified] stuff in the basement". The puppy from The Poky Little Puppy, which I would make out of, "brown and white fur all sewed" Easy to follow instructions even! And still I refused. I am the meanest mother ever.

I suggested they go as Max and Ruby wearing borrowed bunny ears. At first they seemed to go along with that idea, until Maddie let the Logan Summers in her take over and decided she must have a floor length dress, just like Ruby wears. Then Max decided he would need to wear blue overalls. These are both things I would just create for them, if I loved them at all.

This morning while Maddie got dressed I said, "You know, you could go as Ramona Quimby." She went for it! Except she started looking at her collection of Ramona books and began suggesting I run to Target and find a pair of red boots. I said, "No." and thought to myself, "Holy Crap my kids are spoiled and unimaginative."

I dropped Ramona at school and thanked God she wouldn't be able to change her mind again.

Max was still having trouble coming up with an acceptable idea for his ensemble. He decided maybe he would wear the bunny ears and be Little Nut Brown Hare from Guess How Much I Love You. But this was too girl-ish. I suggested being Max from Where the Wild Things Are, but that is the dumbest thing Max could possibly be ever. Only an idiot would suggest that. You are the worst mother ever. Why can't you just make me a fur suit?

So I went to do laundry, because that's what horrible mothers do when they're not making their children's lives a living hell.

When I came back upstairs (from our lovely clean and bright finished laundry room in the basement. Buy My House!) Max had put on his dark blue hooded sweatshirt and had his hands on the pockets, creating fairly realistic wings.

"Look! I'm Stellaluna!"

And I praised his great idea and his imagination and I thought, "Maybe the tv hasn't ruined my kid's imaginations forever."

Two minutes later Max came to me, "But Stellaluna's a girl.....maybe you can make me a MetaPod costume."

Comments

[Elise Foreman Carter]

This is a GREAT post.

[Susan]

Oh god that is so funny.

[slouching mom]

Actually, I don't blame Max and Maddie for this -- I blame the schools!

This happens to me ALL the time. Last week Ben came home from school with homework that necessitated glue stick (which we usually have but were out of) and paper fasteners. I didn't even know what paper fasteners were until Ben, with much scorn and derision, explained their purpose. The kicker was that the hw was due the next morning.

So who was Ben angry at? Me, of course. How could I not have known to have paper fasteners at the ready?

Aargh.

I feel your pain.

[Toyfoto]

How did you put away the toys? Did you pull a reverse santa in the middle of the night while they were sleeping, wait until they were at school or did you just scoop them up while the kids were at home protesting?

[merseydotes]

Petunia apparently watches Stellaluna at preschool, and we had no idea what it was. Thanks for the link. Blog serendipity.

[dutch]

if only max could have seen the 40-year-old homosexual prancing about the stage in the Where the Wild Things Are ballet last week. Nothing says macho like a 40-year-old homosexual pirouetting in a wolf suit.

[BOSSY]

Bossy would go as Anna Karenina.

[christy]

Max does kind of look like Max from Where the Wild Things Are ...

[Sarah]

Surely I'm not the only one who's now wondering what Logan looks like in a floor length dress?

[silvermine]

Ugh. This continues in school?

I was annoyed last week because my son's daycare decided he needed to bring an apple in on Thursday and told us on Tuesday. Look -- we had pears, we had strawberries, we had wonderful things. The apples went bad. My husband was at school and at work on tuesday and wednesday nights. There was NO WAY I was going to get to the grocery store for apples.

Why? Why?? Why can't you give me at least a weekend to get things??

[Angela]

Wow. Isn't that nice of them. A dress up like Characters day. Fun! You should write them a thank you letter for that.

[ejvalentine]

In 4th grdae, we had to Dress Like a Storybook Character (in lieu of Halloween costumes that might upset the Fundamentalist Presbyterians). My mom-who-doesn't-love-me made me go as The Little Kitten that Lost Her Mittens. I wore a tan fur suit she'd bought at a yard sale, and she pinned a pair of mittens to my back. I would have preferred Max's sweatshirt -- nobody knew who the heck I was supposed to be!

[clearlydistracted]

Love this post. Sing it, sister.

[carrieknits]

You make me laugh out loud every day. It's so good.

[Sarah Brown]

My mom always made me go as Laura Ingalls, because I had the dress and I had the braids, but of course I always wanted to be Alice in Wonderland and didn't understand why she couldn't just whip up one of those starched white aprons and a blonde wig.

[cce]

I've soooo been there. We decided on Eloise because we had the little skirt and the white shirt and I fashioned some suspenders out of construction paper. But where I did fail is on the boyscout front. E-mail went out on a Wednesday saying everyone had to make a cake with a decorative boyscout theme to be judged at Thursday night's meeting. 24 hour notice on a f-ing cake contest. We skipped the meeting.

[Velma]

This is where face paint comes in handy. If you've got face paint, you've got a multitude of choices!

(I sound like a freak, don't I?)

[superblondgirl]

Wait, I thought I was the worst mother in the world - do we have to have some kind of bad mother contest here?

[nancy]

As a teacher, all these comments make me feel much better about my obliviousness to all holidays and holiday related theme parties. What easter? something about eggs? I have no plans, we were working on the letter U.

[maiareads]

Put the kids in my local school. On reading appreciation days the kids are rewarded with PRIZES, not 'completely torment the parents with needed costumes' events. Smoother all round ;)

[2girlsmama]

I LOVE all of those books.

Oh, and my girls do, too.